How many of your creditors filed a claim?

[razmom]

2 questions here:

1) What happens if no (or few) creditors file a claim? For example, if our plan is supposed to pay back $20,000 to unsecureds, but only $10,000 worth of claims are filed, is the plan shortened (after paying the fees, secured arrearages, and 100% to the creditors that filed)?

2) How many/what percentage of your creditors filed claims?

and I guess a bonus question: Am I dreaming here, that not all of them will file claims?

razmom

filed Ch. 13: 6/19/07
341 meeting: 8/1/07

[FeelingHopeless]

Aw ... no, you're not dreaming ... but in our experience, a lot of our creditors waited until the last possible moment. It's like we didn't get anything in the mail for days on end ... and then we had reams of paper delivered in the last week. But then again, that's just what happened to us ...

[HHM]

It is actually quite common that some creditors fail to submit claims. But there is no average percent we can quote you. I have never heard of a case where no creditors filed a claim, and in many cases every creditor files a claim (and sometimes creditors will file multiple or duplicate claims, which you need to stay on top of and object to accordingly).

As for what happens, ultimately, the most you can pay is 100% of your "filed" claims. Thus, if 1 or more creditors fail to file a claim, and your plan is such that you would pay back the creditors that did file a claim in under 60 months, then yes,the plan gets shortened. Note, what you CANNOT do is lower your payment and spread it out over 60 months. For example, if you have $50,000 worth of unsecured debt, and you were paying $833 per month into the plan for 60 months, but creditors only filed $25,000 worth of claims, you could not reduce the payment to $416 and still pay over 60 months

[arkienurse]

DH had neither one of his cc file a claim. ON the other hand, everyone of mine filed claims.

[sandhall]

out of 16 unsecured claims we have 9 file

[CindyLou]

my brother just closed out at 29000 out of close to 85000. you just never know. Most of his filed in the first 3 weeks and only one, a local credit union, waitied until the last minute. His biggest creditors, citibank (which held more than one account plus a furniture loan) and chase (owed close to 20000) didn't file. He was luck because he is in 100% payback. .....although, that will probably change if he goes to jail or rehab for the 3rd DUI he just got

[sarakay5]

Everyone of our unsecured filed a claim. They all had them in within one month. I'm not sure why they bothered though. We are paying 0% to unsecured. So, for us it did not matter how many filed claims, our plan payment stays the same.

[lrprn]

About half of our unsecured creditors and the collectors that bought our original debt filed claims. Our unsecured creditors that filed claims will get paid back about 50% of what we originally owed. The rest are gonna get zero....zilch....nada!

There was no rhyme or reason about who filed claims either - several of our big cc's (over $10-15K each) wrote us off, and several of our smallest cc's (less than $200 each) filed claims. To this day I have no clue why some of our creditors decided to put in a claim and some did not.

[wayne-o]

all of my creditors filed claims except one. It was odd too. It was American Express. I had one gold card and amex blue. they filed on the gold but not the blue.

[$$only4ever]

We had 18 creditors; 9 filed a claim. It was funny, though, we had 2 citibank charge cards with big balances...they did not file a claim, but we had a department store file a claim for $149. Go figure.

[CityGirl]

We had 18 creditors; 9 filed a claim. It was funny, though, we had 2 citibank charge cards with big balances...they did not file a claim, but we had a department store file a claim for $149. Go figure.

I'm going to try and pay off all my creditors under 500.00. The less, the better, and more credit I can keep to re=build again.

[newbie2]

I'm going to try and pay off all my creditors under 500.00. The less, the better, and more credit I can keep to re=build again.

CityGirl, you don't get to pick and choose which creditors to list on your bankruptcy petition. You have to list them all regardless of the size of the balances. You can of course pay them off after your bankruptcy is closed, but I would imagine that the accounts would be closed and not something you can use again to rebuild upon.

[lrprn]

CityGirl, you don't get to pick and choose which creditors to list on your bankruptcy petition. You have to list them all regardless of the size of the balances. You can of course pay them off after your bankruptcy is closed, but I would imagine that the accounts would be closed and not something you can use again to rebuild upon.

Newbie, I believe that CityGirl is talking about paying off her under-$500 creditors *before* she files. As long as she stays under $600 total paid to any one creditor in the 90 days before she files, it's fine to do that. And when balances are zero, then those creditors do NOT have to be listed when you file. It could help her with her credit score a bit after her case is closed.

[CityGirl]

lrprn,
you are correct, however, the $600 rule will be a problem. I'm going to pay all my creditors the minimum until I file and AMEX minimum is $400 a month alone time 3.

[CityGirl]

Oh good, I found this! This was a question posted online to a BK atty.

Payments to five of my nine creditors exceeded $600 over the past 90 days. However, all payments were at or slightly above the minimum payments required to keep the accounts current, and all were roughly proportional to the total balances owed. Will these payments jeopardize Chapter 7 filing?

The short answer is no, your bankruptcy would not be in jeopardy.

A preference is usually a problem for your creditors, and not for you. If you have made payments to creditors which qualify as preferences, the Trustee may seek to recover your preferential payments from the creditor. Your debt to that creditor would still be discharged.

There would be a problem if for some reason you wanted the creditor to be able to keep the preferential payments, such as when the creditor is a relative, or when you have made payments on accounts on which a relative might be liable. If you made preferential payments to a relative, you can expect the Trustee to recover those payments from the relative. If you made preferential payments to a creditor on an account on which the relative might be a cosigner, the creditor will still expect your relative to pay the account after it returns the preference to the Trustee. [9-19-04]